Inside the world of college basketball scheduling: How the WSU-Newman game came to be

About an hour elapsed on Monday between the announcement from the American Athletic Conference that Wichita State’s home conference opener against East Carolina had been postponed and The Eagle reporting WSU had already scheduled a replacement.

What may have seemed like a short and simple process for WSU to line up a 6 p.m. Wednesday game (streaming on ESPN+ with a 15% capacity allowed at Koch Arena) against Newman, a local Division II program, was actually a much more complicated process behind the scenes in the program.

Welcome to college basketball scheduling during the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s been a crazy year, for sure,” said WSU director of basketball operations Dominic Okon, who is in charge of scheduling games for the Shockers. “Everybody has been trying to put the puzzle pieces together the whole year, even up until now.”

Due to the AAC’s protocol, which requires communication between the two program’s medical teams, WSU knew that ECU was dealing with COVID-19 issues that could potentially postpone Wednesday’s game before the Monday afternoon announcement from the conference.

As soon as the conference made the postponement official, WSU interim coach Isaac Brown said he was adamant about finding an opponent to play on Wednesday — three days before the Shockers (4-2) are set for a high-profile road game at Mississippi (5-1).

WSU has already benefited from scheduling a tune-up performance before a road game this season when it added Emporia State to play days before its 82-77 overtime win at South Florida.

“When East Carolina canceled, the first thing we wanted to do was get a game,” Brown said. “I felt like it was good for our team because say for instance if Ole Miss cancels the game on Saturday for some reason, then we go two weeks without playing a basketball game. We couldn’t take that chance. We needed to play someone.

“It’s good going against each other in practice, but I wanted guys making shots when the lights are on.”

While WSU reached an agreement with Newman quickly, the Shockers did explore other possibilities.

“I made some phone calls, but all of the phone calls I made none of those teams could play and some of those teams were in a Power 5 conference,” Brown said. “We want to play teams like that. But those teams are in the middle of their conference schedule and they couldn’t get stuff switched. We couldn’t wait two or three days to find out, so we had to get somebody right then.”

Okon, who has spent the last decade-plus ironing out the details of WSU’s schedule, said reaching agreements with major-conference teams to play the Shockers is challenging enough in a normal offseason. Trying to string together an agreement on the fly in the manner of hours is nearly impossible.

WSU’s options for adding a potential resume-boosting opponent were severely limited because only a handful of major-conference teams in the region were available to play a mid-week game this week. And more importantly, adding a game on short notice against WSU had to make sense for the opponent.

“Scheduling is not only about finding an open date, but coaches also look at what they stand to gain from playing Team A, B, C and D,” Okon said. “You have to think about where you’re at in your schedule and how it fits with your current team, especially this close with just a few days out. The timing of it all is crucial. That’s why the chances of playing (a major-conference team) is very limited to what you can get.”

Another consideration for WSU bringing in a lower-level Division I team was paying a guarantee fee that is typical for those games. In the age of the coronavirus pandemic, programs like WSU aren’t generating the same amount of revenue because of the missing ticket sales and in-arena purchases by fans at Koch Arena this season.

That means teams are looking to save money everywhere, including how much money they offer for “buy games.” For example, Oral Roberts was originally scheduled to receive an $85,000 guarantee to play at Koch Arena this season. But in the restructured deal post-pandemic, ORU received less than half of that.

That’s been common across college basketball, Okon said.

“You can’t give out as much money because of no fans,” Okon explained. “Guaranteed games that cost $25,000 to $80,000 last year are going for $15,000 to $40,000 this year.”

For Newman, it was much more simple. The Jets didn’t have a game until Saturday, so they were available and because they had yet to play an exhibition game (Wednesday will count as an exhibition for Newman) they were also eligible in that regard.

The only adjustment for Newman was its COVID-19 testing frequency. In Division II, teams are only required to test once a week and that is typically on Monday. But per the AAC protocol, WSU opponents must test three times before games. Since Newman already tested on Monday, it will be able to test again on Tuesday and Wednesday before the game to satisfy those requirements.

“I think in the Covid world, adjusting on the fly is what we’ve all had to do,” Newman athletic director Joanna Pryor said. “For us, it’s a great opportunity to play in our own town against a Division I school, so there’s a lot of excitement behind that for us.”

While WSU could have pursued a chance for a marquee non-conference opponent, it would have also opened up the Shockers to a much higher risk of losing.

With back-to-back road trips coming up with Ole Miss (5-1) on Saturday and No. 5 Houston (7-0) next Wednesday, WSU saw more value in shaking off its rust from Christmas break and sharpening its execution in a relatively low-risk game against Newman.

“We go into every game telling our players, ‘Respect your opponent,’” Brown said. “Respect your opponent because anybody can beat you on any given night.

“We’re approaching it like any other game. We’re going to play our starters and if there’s an opportunity to get other guys in the game, I will. But the bottom line is that we need to play well in order to prepare for Ole Miss. I think the Emporia State game helped us a lot giving us confidence running our system and being able to make open shots and then we went down to South Florida and played well. We’ve got to do the same thing against Newman.”

Newman at Wichita State

Records: Newman 2-4, WSU 4-2

When: 6 p.m.

Where: Koch Arena (15% capacity)

Streaming: ESPN+

Radio: KEYN, 103.7-FM

Projected starters

This story was originally published December 29, 2020 at 4:02 PM.

Taylor Eldridge

The Wichita Eagle

316-268-6270

Wichita State athletics beat reporter. Bringing you closer to the Shockers you love and inside the sports you love to watch.